Music: Pioneering the Old

When the Bolshoi Opera crossed the Atlantic last year to Montreal's Expo
67, it lugged along 95 choristers, 48 soloists, 99 instrumentalists, 50
dancers, 127 staff assistants, 193 tons of scenery and five tons of
Russian edibles. When Rome's Piccolo Teatro Musicale arrived in
Manhattan last week, there was a little less to be seena handful of
singers and players, one slightly overweight conductor, and a compact
bundle of slats, screws and canvas that weighed scarcely more than a
ton. But when the slats and canvas were screwed together into a
miniature Neapolitan...